Various artistic works throughout history have presented the house as another character, with a soul and, in some cases, the ability to speak. The most remembered example may be ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ by Edgar Allan Poe, a story in which the home symbolizes the psychological claustrophobia of its protagonist. Horror has played a lot with the concept of the personified house, for example the film ‘Monter House’ (2006) or the Japanese cult classic ‘Hausu’ (1977). However, the home has not always served as an allegory for the characters’ state of terror, as demonstrated by the beautiful Disney film, ‘Encanto’ (2021).
Zahara’s new single fits into the second category of cultural products that celebrate home. Zahara dedicates “a love song” to a country house, with which she has “fallen in love”, and contrasts it with that of Madrid, the city from which she is fleeing. “May Madrid die, may it burn in hell,” he sings in the lyrics.
For Zahara, her new house is a person like her. “I hear its noises at night, I feel that this house speaks to me, that it has hands, lungs, I hear each of its words,” sings the woman from Ubeta, intoxicated by the memory of a quieter life, surrounded by nature, which is once again a reality. Zahara celebrates its direct connection with nature, with “poppies”, “bees” or “cypresses”. He even notices a “broken chair”, probably made of wicker, although he does not detail it. In any case, Zahara finds in this house a vehicle to escape the “sadness” and possibly also the frenzy of Madrid, a wonderful city but one that can also be very hostile.
To tell this love story, which is just as romantic as others, but is not dedicated to a person, Zahara does not resort to a bucolic sound at all. That would have been too predictable. In her escape from Madrid, Zahara also flees from pop in the first preview of her new album, ‘Lento Ternura’, which will go on sale in 2025.
The sound of ‘I only wanted to write a love song’ does not radically break with that of ‘Puta’ (2021), but rather establishes it. The production – signed by Zahara – evokes with its mechanized base an influence of synthetic-based post-punk. On this basis, Zahara interprets a melody that is much more of a Spanish melodic song than it seems, without offering obvious hooks on a first listen. It’s a risky bet by Zahara… that catches the eye through her -literally- fantastic video clip. The town house concept worked, and Zahara has done her homework by launching a visual that is pure eye candy.
Charging …